Thursday, April 04, 2013

The Ambiguity of the Death of Turnus

My year 12 class have recently done an exam on Aeneid XII; to help them learn from the experience I wrote a sample answer to the extended response question I posed them. Any comments are, as always, welcome. I know the ending of the Aeneid has the potential to cause heated debate, so feel free to let me know if you think I've got it completely wrong.

'utere sorte tua. miseri te si qua parentis

tangere cura potest, oro (fuit et tibi talis

Anchises genitor) Dauni miserere senectae

et me, seu corpus spoliatum lumine mavis,935

redde meis. vicisti et victum tendere palmas

Ausonii videre; tua est Lavinia coniunx,

ulterius ne tende odiis.' stetit acer in
armis

Aeneas volvens oculos dextramque repressit;

et iam iamque magis cunctantem flectere sermo940

coeperat, infelix umero cum apparuit alto

balteus et notis fulserunt cingula bullis

Pallantis pueri, victum quem vulnere Turnus

straverat atque umeris inimicum insigne
gerebat.

ille, oculis postquam saevi monimenta doloris945

exuviasque hausit, furiis accensus et ira

terribilis: 'tune hinc spoliis indute meorum

eripiare mihi? Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.'

“A difficult, complex, allusive, challenging end” (Horsefall,
p.195)

Analyse how Virgil’s language and
characterisation of Aeneas and Turnus contributes to the ambiguity of his
poem’s ending.

In the final lines of the Aeneid,
we see what appears to be a dramatic role reversal in the characters of Virgil’s
two heroes. The out of control Turnus, now seems calm and collected in the face
of his impending death, whereas pius
Aeneas seems to give in to the feelings of rage and grief which surge within
him, showing the same excess of passion and lack of restraint which is
condemned in both Dido and Turnus. This apparent reversal contributes to the
poem's somewhat ambiguous ending, and forces the reader to carefully consider
whether Aeneas’ final act can be justified within the moral framework of the Aeneid.

It is perhaps in Turnus that the more striking change occurs. Virgil
gives him a nobility largely absent from his portrayal in Book XII, which comes
primarily from his acceptance of his impending death. His acknowledgement of
Aeneas’ victory is total, and conveyed through the polyptoton of vicisti et victum… videre (emphasised by alliteration), his renunciation of Lavinia (tua est Lavinia coniunx) and the way he calmly
refers to his own death in grand-sounding language (corpus spoliatum lumine). Although he pleads with Aeneas (oro, miserere),
he does not protest about his actual death, and Virgil gives his pleas a humble
rather than desperate, tone through the use of elevated, poetic language, such
as the framing of miserere by Dauni… senectae or the use of the poetic
word genitor (rather than the more
prosaic pater).

Moreover Turnus’ pleas reveal not just a calm acceptance of death,
but a selfless concern for his father (cura…
parentis, Dauni miserere senectae).
This display of pietas, the virtue
more usually associated with Aeneas, is surprising, but reinforces the nobility
of Turnus, portraying him in a more sympathetic light. In a similar way we are
surprised to find Turnus, the wounded lion, the out of control boulder, the
bellowing bull, urging restraint upon Aeneas, advising him not to stretch his
hatred any further (ulterius ne tende
odiis). Like pietas, self-control
or moderation was an important Roman value, and so Virgil’s choice to end
Turnus’ speech in this way is significant, suggesting that he wanted his Roman
audience to feel respect and even admiration for Turnus at this point of the
narrative. The sympathy for Turnus which Virgil arouses in his readers through
portraying his nobility and virtue is thus a prime source of the ambiguity we
feel over his imminent death.

Aeneas on the other hand, appears in a much more negative light.
Virgil associates him with words and images of intense grief and anger. At
first he is merely fierce (acer), but
as his attention is drawn to the stolen sword-belt of Pallas, Virgil describes
him (or more accurately his grief) as savage (saevi), enflamed with madness (furiis
accensus) and terrible in anger (ira
terribilis). This is the kind of language more typically used of Turnus and
even Dido to show their excess of emotion and lack of self-control. The image
of fire (accensus) in particular
suggests that Aeneas’ rage is burning beyond his control and that he is not
behaving in a way consistent with the Roman ideals revealed to him by his
father Anchises in the Underworld (Book VI). Aeneas’ killing of Turnus also
requires a rejection of Turnus’ appeal to his pietas and the memory of Anchises himself (fuit… Anchises genitor), showing the extent of the change in Aeneas’
character.

Aeneas’ brief speech at the end of the extract also strengthens
this impression. The outrage of his rhetorical question (tune… eripiare mihi?), the repetition of Pallas’ name, the framing
of the final line with the violent verbs of sacrifice (immolat… sumit), and the hissing sound created by the ‘s’ alliteration in scelerato ex sanguine sumit all combine to create a
speech seething with anger and rage, again suggesting to the reader that Aeneas
goes too far in killing Turnus, contributing to the ambiguity of the poem’s
ending.

And so it is clear that Virgil wants his readers to feel some sympathy
for Turnus at the end of his life, and portrays Aeneas in a way which
emphasises his anger. However it is not solely the fact of Aeneas’ anger which
creates ambiguity; the ambiguity comes from the ghost of Pallas which haunts
these lines. Virgil’s decision to make the belt of Pallas (infelix… balteus) the catalyst for the death of Turnus reminds us
of the duty he owes to Evander and his dead son Pallas, and makes us ask
whether the rage of Aeneas, intense and overwhelming as it is, is perhaps
justified. Aeneas’ must choose between two loyalties; honouring Daunus and the
memory of Anchises, by sparing Turnus’ life, or honouring Evander and the
memory of Pallas by taking it. This choice is perhaps embodied in line 943,
which is framed by Pallantis pueri at
the start and by Turnus at the end. The
ambiguity comes from Virgil’s characterisation and surprising role-reversal of
both Turnus and Aeneas, but also from the conflicting loyalties felt by Aeneas,
from the unanswerable question of whether his rage is ultimately justified, and
from the knowledge that either choice is, in the end, fundamentally
compromised.